Archive for the 'Technology' Category
California to Allow Testing of Self-Driving Cars Without a Driver Present
February 27th, 2018Thinking about the security side of this sends a chill down my spine. We’ve all heard of botnets. We’re probably not more than a couple of years away from the first botnet consisting of thousands of autonomous vehicles. I have roughly zero confidence that the security around autonomous vehicles will be sufficient to prevent this […]
Kids Use Tech So Much They Can’t Hold A Pencil Anymore, Doctors Say
February 26th, 2018Swipetarded parents. Swipetarded children. This should be a boon for the public school to private prison gravy train. Via: Guardian: Children are increasingly finding it hard to hold pens and pencils because of an excessive use of technology, senior paediatric doctors have warned. An overuse of touchscreen phones and tablets is preventing children’s finger muscles […]
Apple Confirms It Uses Google’s Cloud for iCloud
February 26th, 2018Via: CNBC: A file that Apple updated on its website last month provides the first acknowledgment that it’s relying on Google’s public cloud for data storage for its iCloud services. The disclosure is fresh evidence that Google’s cloud has been picking up usage as it looks to catch up with Amazon and Microsoft in the […]
Apple Moves to Store iCloud Keys in China, Raising Human Rights Fears
February 24th, 2018Via: Reuters: When Apple Inc begins hosting Chinese users’ iCloud accounts in a new Chinese data center at the end of this month to comply with new laws there, Chinese authorities will have far easier access to text messages, email and other data stored in the cloud. That’s because of a change to how the […]
Daimler’s Truck Boss Thinks Tesla Semi Specs Defy Laws of Physics, Musk Thinks Production Tesla Semi Will Exceed Specs for Same Price
February 24th, 2018Via: Electrek: As we reported last week and discussed on the Electrek podcast yesterday, many people still have a difficult time wrapping their head around the Tesla Semi specs that the company announced last year. But now CEO Elon Musk says that he is ‘optimistic’ they can beat those specs with the production version of […]
Thanks to “Consent” Buried Deep in Sales Agreements, Car Manufacturers Are Tracking Tens of Millions of U.S. Cars
February 24th, 2018Via: BoingBoing: Millions of new cars sold in the US and Europe are “connected,” having some mechanism for exchanging data with their manufacturers after the cars are sold; these cars stream or batch-upload location data and other telemetry to their manufacturers, who argue that they are allowed to do virtually anything they want with this […]
SpaceX Begins Starlink Satellite Broadband Trial
February 24th, 2018Via: cnet: A pair of small satellites named for an adventurous Belgian cartoon character could serve as proof of concept for an ambitious global broadband service envisioned by Elon Musk. After days of delays, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the two small satellites, newly dubbed Tintin A and B by Musk (but known more […]
Construction Begins on Jeff Bezos’ $42 Million 10,000-Year Clock
February 24th, 2018Via: The Verge: Installation has finally begun on Jeff Bezos’ 10,000-year clock, a project that the Amazon CEO has invested $42 million in (along with a hollowed-out mountain in Texas that Bezos intends for a Blue Origin spaceport), with the goal of building a mechanical clock that will run for 10 millennia.
SpinLaunch
February 23rd, 2018I just hope there’s plenty of 4K footage of the launch centrifuge facility when it experiences catastrophic failure. Via: TechCrunch: What if instead of blasting cargo into space on a rocket, we could fling it into space using a catapult? That’s the big, possibly crazy, possibly genius idea behind SpinLaunch. It was secretly founded in […]
Nissan to Begin Easy Ride Trial in Japan
February 22nd, 2018Via: Reuters: Facing a future in which self-driving cars may curb vehicle ownership, Nissan Motor Co is taking its first steps to becoming an operator of autonomous transportation services, hoping to break into a segment set to be dominated by Uber Technologies and other technology firms. In partnership with Japanese mobile gaming platform operator DeNA […]
